Voyager FM
by The Libran Iniquity
Summary: (AU) A day in the life of Tom Paris at the helm of Voyager FM, the premier national radio station...the day is over, but this time Tom has something (or someone, depending) to look forward to... (COMPLETED)
1. Voyager FM

A/N: _Voyager FM_ is completely and utterly 100% AU. Just so you know…  
This is, in my twisted view, what _Star Trek: Voyager_ would be if it was a radio show. Enjoy

Disclaimer: I own nothing and nobody  
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"You're late, Mr Paris. This is a work establishment, not a bar." Marcus Tuvok, security presence. Always good for a conversation.

Ah, the usual. I replied with my normal, "I'm aware of that," and went on my way. Pulled my ID out to show to the boss's PA and walked on through to my little office, cluttered as per usual. I had taken to scaring the cleaner into not touching my stuff.

I sat down and looked through the programme for the day. Almost immediately a head poked round the door.

"Hey Tom," Harry said, smiling. "Boss wants to make sure that you've got everything sorted for today's show. Apparently the _Doctor_ doesn't like disorderliness." The word 'Doctor' was said with a smirk.

"Wonder if he has a name?" I commented, checking the schedule.

"Well, if he has, he hasn't told them upstairs." Harry smirked again. He came into the office properly and sat down opposite me, giving me a long look, combined with a smile. He had something up his sleeve. I knew it.

I put the clipboard down and sighed. "Don't tell me…you've got Alexia to go out with you."

Harry's grin widened. He had, I knew it. I shook my head in amusement. "Harry, you need to take up acting lessons."

"Why?"

"I can read you like a book!"

We both laughed for a while. Then the PA nearly cam into the room. She didn't like messy offices either. I had seen hers. Just as sparse as the day she arrived.

"Mr Paris, Mr Kim, we need you in the studio in ten minutes."

"Sure thing, Annika," Harry replied. "We'll only be a couple of minutes."

Annika stiffened then walked off down the corridor. Two minutes later we were in the studio, reeking as it usually did of disinfectant and lemon. Harry slid into his seat opposite me and pulled his headphones on. I did the same.

"Three minutes until you two are on-air."

"Thanks, B'Elanna!" I turned back to Harry and lowered my voice. "She gets better looking every day."

"Her?" Harry raised his eyebrows. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'd rather take my chances with Alexia than her."

"I said she was gorgeous. I didn't say anything about her stubbornness, her perfectionism…her angelic features, her…"

A hand waved in front of my face. "Hello-o? Earth to Tom!"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you." I kept staring at B'Elanna, as she monitored the data on the board in front of her.

"Besides, " Harry continued, "I heard that she's going out with one of the sound techs for the evening show."

That stopped me. "Keiron?"

He shook his head, the parody of coyness. "Nathaniel."

"That weirdo? What can she see in him?"

"The fact that he's a perfect gentleman, unlike _some_."

I knew the voice. I gulped and turned around. B'Elanna was standing there with an indescribable look on her face.

"Do - do you mean me?" My voice came out barely above a whisper. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my best friend smirking.

"Two things, Paris," she said curtly. One, never discuss my private life. Two, you're on in fifteen seconds."

I swear she was laughing as she walked away. I grabbed my headphones and swivelled back around so I was facing Harry, and watched as he made some final adjustments on the computer next to him.

Just as he finished, the intro music sounded through the room. I pulled the microphone a bit closer, and Harry followed suit.

The music ended and he took a deep breath.

"Good morning everybody and welcome to Voyager FM. He's Tom…"

"…And he's Harry. On the show today, we have the final of our competition to win a two week break to the historic and rural depths of England."

"We also have the Doctor this morning. Phone in with your life and love worries, and see what he can do for you."

"But to kick things off at this early hour, we have Vanessa Carlton, with _1000 Miles_…"

Music filled the small studio, and I took my first full breath.

As my father used to say, the day was young…


	2. The Doctor

Piano music filled the tiny studio. I pulled my headphones off for a quick bit of relief and pushed the microphone away. Harry was intently focused on his computer, occasionally hitting a few seemingly random keys, so instead I looked out of the window behind him that looked over the corridor.

Standing there was a slightly middle-aged man with receding speckled dark brown hair. He was wearing a blue suit and an annoyed look on his face. Beside him was the lithe form of Annika. She opened the door and let the man in.

"…Terribly sorry for the delay, Doctor. I must assure you that this does not happen very often if at all."

"No worries, Miss Hansen," the man replied amiably. He stepped into the room proper and had a quick look around.

I stood up and gave him the once-over. "So, you must be the Doctor. Boss said you were coming today," I added as I checked the switchboard. Ready to rumble. "Just take a seat and we'll introduce you to our listeners."

He nodded and sat down at the end of the table.

"By the way, do you have a name?"

The 'Doctor' remained silent and smiled cryptically. It gave me an idea.

Harry took his eyes off the computer and gave the Doctor a brief look of acknowledgement before swivelling a third microphone towards him. I handed him a pair of headphones. "You'd better put these on," I explained, pulling my own on again as the last chords faded into nothingness. Instead of putting them on, the Doctor put them down onto the table almost gingerly, as if they were going to bite him or something.

Harry was speaking. "In the studio with us this morning we have the Doctor, who will be here all morning to answer your questions about life, love and anything else inbetween."

I chimed in. "_Anything_, Harry?"

"Anything, Tom," he replied with a wink. He gave out the telephone number and relaxed slightly as more music filled the airwaves.

B'Elanna came in just then, looking a bit harassed. She handed the clipboard she was carrying to me. "The finalists are on the top row. Oscar is line 1 and Sophie is line 2. The questions and the answers are below."

She then turned around to check on the equipment on the wall, which gave me a perfect view of her slim figure. "You've got five calls already," she said with a smile. "You want to answer a couple now or later on?"

I raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, asking him silently. "Now would be okay," he said to her.

"Okay, then." B'Elanna jotted down a couple of details on a pad and handed again to me.

"What have you got then?" asked Harry, leaning over.

"…Leann is having trouble getting her boyfriend to notice her, David's parents are going through a bad divorce, Hazel is feeling isolated from her friends, Mark is going through a tough time since his parents died and Taylor wants some advice for college applications."

"Chirpy bunch," Harry commented. The Doctor frowned at him. "You shouldn't make fun of them," he said sternly. "It's not peoples' fault if things like that happen to them."

Harry raised his eyebrows at me and smirked slightly. As the song reached the final chorus - it was a favourite of mine - I pulled the headphones back on and offered a third microphone and the abandoned headphones to the Doctor. This time, he accepted both.

I turned back toward the microphone. "And that was Daniel Bedingfield, with _If You're Not The One_. Now we have the Doctor ready to answer your questions and queries just about anything!"

"Indeedy," Harry chimed in. "First on the line we have Mark. Hello?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught B'Elanna pushing some buttons and flicking a few switches on a panel in the wall. Moments later, a young man's voice filled the studio. The owner of the voice couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen.

"…Hi," the voice was saying. "Uh, my mom and dad died a month ago and ever since then my friends have been drifting away from me, to the extent that only one person really talks to me any more."

__

Poor sod, I thought to myself.

"OK, then," the Doctor said briskly in a gentle kind of way, "the best thing that I could advise you to do would be to look for any organised activities in your area. Can I ask how old you are?"

"Sixteen."

"Well, then, look for any youth activities in your local area, maybe a youth club, and in the meantime try and open up a bit more to your friends…"

And so it dragged on.

Roll on lunchtime.

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Reviewer Response:-**  
darkdragon88**:- Not necessarily a parody of the show, more taking my favourite characters and wrecking havoc with them! It's fun! And as for the red-shirted ensigns-slash-assistants, I don't know yet. You have any in mind?  
**Ananke**:- Continued, as requested :)


	3. Annika Hansen

A/N: In keeping with the AU setting, I have altered names of alien characters to suit humans. This usually manifests as their real name becoming a surname or nickname. I hope this helps

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Lunchtime came far too slowly for my liking. For this I blame the Doctor; so many callers called in with problems about this, that and the other. I wasn't being disparaging or anything, but if the thirty-seven calls we received were any indication, we had one sorry group of listeners. Naturally he insisted on answering them all; in the end we listened to nineteen tales of woe over three and a half, nearly four, hours.

I mean, my life isn't exactly a bunch of roses, but there are people with problems, and there are people with problems. Clearly (and with no offence to any of our listeners reading this), our audience fell well and truly into the latter category.

Anyway…

Lunchtime at Voyager was a forty-minute break with a junior manning the midday shift, and then Harry and I returning full-force in the afternoon. Lunchtime was also a good time to hobnob properly with the other guests and fully work out the details of the afternoon segment. In the cafeteria, of course.

Where else?

"So you're telling me," Harry managed through a mouthful of pasta, "that you do this every day?" He finished off the mouthful with a noisy swallow and stared in disbelief at the Doctor, who hadn't touched his bowl of food.

"For two weeks at a time, Mr Kim," the Doctor replied. "Inbetween periods I give talks at universities and colleges, and I also hold a permanent job as a counsellor at my local high school."

__

Poor kids.

"Really?" I asked, trying to keep a smirk off my face. "Sounds like you've got a lot of people relying on you. Are you sure you're able to cope with it all. I mean, the responsibility factor must be sky-high."

The Doctor sent me an icy glare that nearly silenced me. "Some people, Mr Paris, are expertly equipped to deal with the pressures that responsibility presents. Like me, for example." His expression was the very epitome of 'I'm so fantastic, look at me!'

Unseen, Harry rolled his eyes in my direction.

"And _some_ people aren't," the Doctor concluded, looking pointedly at me. I allowed him a brief moment of glory by pointing at myself in the classic _'Moi?' _pose. At that point Harry couldn't help himself. Suddenly, his pasta was, well, coming out of his mouth at a rate of knots.

"Gross," I declared. "Harry, Harry, Harry. Where _are_ your manners?"

__

On vacation with the Doctor's, no doubt.

One of the red-shirted [1] kitchen staff rushed over with a cloth and offered it to Harry. "Thanks," he mumbled, and set about trying to clean his shirt, now almost entirely covered in red pasta sauce … and other bits and colours as well. A few minutes later … well, let's just say that his yellow shirt was now a rather unattractive shade of orange. But it _looked_ clean, and it was dry. Well, close enough.

The Doctor left his bowl (still untouched, ingrate), and started to head out of the door without so much as a goodbye. Harry looked at me. "You think he knows where he's going?"

I snorted. "Probably not. Does it matter?"

"Nope," Harry snickered, then went pale again. He started groaning, and put his hand to his mouth while massaging his stomach with the other.

"Let me know if it's going to happen again, and we'll provide you with a fresh target," I said in an attempt to cheer him up. "The Doctor should do."

"Yeah…swell…" Harry managed before rushing off to the toilet.

Which left me in the cafeteria. Alone. Except for the cook. I swear that guy's on steroids or something. He's so perky, it's unbelievable.

__

Speak of the devil and he will appear …

"Ah, Mr Paris," he said, ambling over. "I hope Mr Kim didn't find his meal too disagreeable." He sat down opposite me.

"You know Harry," I replied noncommittally. "He'll be fine."

"I'm sure he will," he said in return, "but it happens to be you I'm more concerned about."

That stopped me. I looked over at him to find him wearing some paternal look on his face. Kind of the way my dad used to try and look at me before he left home when I was twelve. Admiral Owen Paris, one of the US Navy's greatest strategists of the twentieth century, but unable to cope with raising his own son.

Isn't my life a soap opera?

"Neelix." I picked my words carefully, purposely using his nickname. "There is nothing to be worried about. Okay? I'm fine. It's the toilet I'm more worried about." I forced a smile. "Why don't you go try talk to Harry? Might help him get rid of all that pasta quicker."

Neelix got up and walked away, not saying anything. Suddenly, I felt this big pang of … something … inside me. Emotion? Guilt. It wasn't my fault, though. Every time someone acted as if they were trying to run my life I got like this without knowing exactly why. Like I was a caged animal or something.

I watched him head back into the kitchen area, and briefly considered following him and apologising, then decided against it. Then I decided that I _was_ going to apologise, then I wasn't going to, and then Annika walked in.

I know for a fact that most of Voyager FM's male crew drooled over her wherever she went, including at one point, Harry, during her 'catsuit' phase, when she first joined the team around about three or four years back. I have to admit that even I was slightly tempted back then, when I was so innocent … okay, slightly more innocent than I am now. But even still, in a demure grey suit, she did look stunning. Just a pity about her 'Ice Queen' demeanour. Unless she specifically had business with you, it was like you didn't exist. Figuratively and literally.

But, this time, she was headed in my direction, all five-eleven blonde-hair blue-eyes of her. As she got closer, I stood up.

"Annika," I smiled and offered her a seat. "Finally found your appetite?" That was another thing about her. She _never_ ate. Rumour had it she was some kind of robot.

"No," she said without preamble. "Mr Paris, your presence is required upstairs. Please report there immediately." Her voice was flat and clipped, and her face had no emotion showing at all. Who knew? Maybe she was a robot after all.

Abruptly she turned and left the room, all movements precise and fluid. Definitely robot-like.

But upstairs? Upstairs meant only one thing.

The boss. Programme supervisor, managing director, however you want to say it.

One of the single most formidable and intimidating bosses I had ever come across.

Ms Kathryn Janeway.

I gulped.

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Reviewer Response:-  
**Knight of Darkness**:- To be quite honest, I'd like to see where this is going as well! Glad to know you like  
**CaptainKJ**:- Thank you. And with a name like that I can only hope that you like the little chapter ending I left there ^^  
**darkdragon88**:- [1] Methinks this may be enough for now as far as those darned red shirts go. And wrecking havoc is always fun, no matter what genre it's in! And I like the idea of a rival radio station, it may well come into play. Have to see on that one…


	4. Kathryn Janeway

On the way up, I argued with myself over whether I should take the long route or the short route, the difference being about two seconds, and I ended up going the quick way. Up two flights of stairs, along a corridor, up another flight of stairs and the door was right in front of me. Along the way, you have various offices belonging to other Voyager presenters and employees, storage rooms, and my own personal favourite; the conference room. The only room in the building to have a semi-decent view out of the window.

A view of a dual carriageway instead of walls of other buildings. Oh, what joy there is to be had staring at cars instead of bricks.

I knocked on Janeway's door. Seconds later, a brisk female voice answered. "Come in."

So I went in. About one inch at a time, but I went in. The dark wood door creaked as it opened, and I wondered if she had many visitors. From the way the door seemed like it was in so much pain, I guessed not.

Inside the carpet was plush and kind of springy under my feet. And it looked almost brand-new. Humph. It wasn't like that outside; the threadbare carpet in the corridor was at least fifteen or twenty years old, by my guess.

Janeway was sitting at her desk, a mug of coffee in one hand, and a red Thermos on the desk. Voyager's grapevine had it that she drank her way through so much coffee that she was sending the manufacturer's kids to college or at least through a damn good private education. She looked up me. "Ah, Mr Paris," she said with a not-very-convincing half smile. "Sit." She waved her free hand at the chair on my side of the table.

I sat.

Janeway leaned under her desk and pulled up a file from one of the drawers, and placed in dead centre on the desk surface. There was a name in the top left-hand corner. Reading upside down, I managed to make out the words _Paris, Thomas Eugene_.

Uh-oh.

Janeway set her coffee down and looked me straight in the eye. "Tom, we've been monitoring your progress very carefully over the past few years. Since you first came here."

"Okay …" I wasn't sure what she expected me to say.

She opened the file and turned it around so that I could see a piece of lined paper, filled with incredibly tiny handwriting. Squinting, I could just make out times and figures, listed for every shift Harry and I had done together on Voyager FM over the past five or six years. Ratings? I couldn't tell.

"That's your shifts there," she explained, pointing at one column with a pen. "And those," she continued, indicating the numbers next to them, "are your listening figures. Total audience, averaged per hour and throughout the day."

I stared. Today was June 28th. On June 1st six years ago, it looked like we had an aggregate of five hundred thousand listeners. Skimming down, that total increased steadily from that to more than triple for two days ago. Holy hell. We had that many people listening to me and Harry making fools of ourselves over the airwaves? Woa.

I looked back up at Janeway, unable to speak. Unbelievably, she was still smiling. "Congratulations, Tom," she said, with a genuine smile this time. "You've been doing a fantastic job over the last six and a half years. It's good to see that trust I had in you back then wasn't unfounded after all."

I finally returned the smile, but it wasn't that much compared to her beam. Then she looked up at the clock on the wall. "Speaking of jobs, you should get back to yours. And keep an eye on Mr Kim for me. We don't want a repeat of what happened in the cafeteria, do we?"

I stood up. "Yes ma'am. How did you know -"

"About Harry?" she replied. Her grin grew wider. "I have my ways and my means, Tom. Now go on, get going."

"One more thing, Ms Janeway." Hey, I _had_ to know.

"Yes?" Janeway arched an eyebrow, the fake, professional semi-smile back on her face.

"It's about the Doctor," I explained. "Harry and I were, uh, wondering if he actually has a name or not. He wouldn't exactly tell us himself."

Janeway smiled cryptically. "Then he obviously had his reasons not to tell you, Tom. Now get going! Dismissed."

"Yes, ma'am." I left.

Time for work again.

__

Memo to self; no more pasta for Harry.

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Reviewer Response:-  
**Knight of Darkness**:- Yep. It's the big one. The boss. The source of all employment and paycheques!  
**CaptainKJ**:- I know, very much an understatement. I mean, the first time I saw the captain in _Caretaker_, she scared me. She looked so damn FORMAL! I think I played on that a lot in this chapter. Oh, and the coffee!  
**Aiyana Torres**:- I don't really watch Frasier. Is this really that similar? Huh. Nice to know you like!


	5. Harry Kim

By the time I got back down to the studio, Harry was sitting at his desk in another (fortunately clean) yellow shirt, acting as if nothing had happened except for the fact that I definitely saw a bucket hiding behind his chair. And he still wasn't looking too good. Kinda peaky.

I looked around the room, and then back at Harry. "Any sign of the Doctor?"

He shook his head. "Not since he left the cafeteria. I think he's gone back to the high school."

"May they be as emotionally scarred as we are now," I said solemnly. Harry sniggered, and I knew I had achieved the desired result. "So, Mister Computer-Whiz," I continued, "what have we to do this good afternoon?"

Harry gave me a very fish-eyed look over the monitor, but answered nevertheless. "That competition, and a couple of guests from _Jupiter_ station."

I raised my eyebrows. "Since when do we get to publicise them? I mean, what do we get in return?"

Harry sighed. I got the feeling he already had an answer prepared.

He did, as it happened. "One, we're a spin-off from them. The people from _Jupiter FM_ pretty much launched _Voyager_, and Janeway feels it's about time we owed them a bit of our own airtime. In return, they have been advertising us for a couple of years now, and this makes sure that they still will, and with a bit more regularity into the bargain."

"Then what are we waiting for?" I picked up my headphones, and cast a dirty look at the Doctor's discarded pair. Humph. He goes on about being responsible and the ideal role model and all, but he doesn't eat lunch, and clearly doesn't clear up after himself. And he claims to be a dependable adult. Tossing his headphones onto the growing heap of broken or otherwise useless junk behind me, I looked up to see B'Elanna come in again.

Harry shot me a warning glance. I knew the look by now. _Keep your ugly mouth shut_, it said to me. Okay, so I made up the ugly part, but the message was clear enough. Painfully so, in fact.

But some things just never happen the way you want them to. B'Elanna looked at me.

"We've got the two finalists on standby," she said shortly. "Whenever you're ready."

"Okay," I replied, not looking up at her.

B'Elanna stalked over to my side of the desk and handed me back the clipboard from earlier. The same information was still on it, but was now also covered in her slanted, curved handwriting down one side of the first sheet. Mostly notes on which buttons to press, which lights meant what and so on. Humph. As if I didn't know already … and some of them I didn't know. Ah.

I made a big show of sticking my head underneath the desk in an attempt to retrieve my own notes from earlier, and while under there I heard the door close. When my head resurfaced, minus said notes, she was gone.

Harry looked at me funny again. "You know, you keep on doing that and she'll figure out something's up," he said, pulling the clipboard his way. "I'll take care of this."

"Okay."

He smiled and turned back to his computer, muttering something about 'blasted opening jingles'. Seconds later, Voyager's theme music filled the room again. Hurriedly, I pulled my headphones on again and readied my microphone.

Harry saved me the trouble and started speaking. "Good afternoon and welcome back to the madhouse that is Voyager FM. He's Tom…"

"…and he's Harry. Now, I don't know about you Harry, but I think the Doctor has done a bit of a runner from Voyager."

Harry nodded. "I think so too, Tom. So if anybody happens to see him anywhere at all today, you have our full permission to give him some good what for. Sources say that he may be in proximity of high schools, so students beware!" he concluded, and laughed.

"So now that ye olde Doc's upped and disappeared, we have a vacancy in the guest department. Now, we did consider bringing in Harry's cleaner, but we also think she may be too mentally scarred to have a good conversation."

"We tried getting hold of Tom's, but she's nowhere to be found," Harry interjected, and laughed again.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," I retorted.

"I'll leave you to do that," Harry replied, poking his tongue out at me.

"Very funny," I said. "_Anyway_ … we still have the trip to England to be won. All this week Sophie and Oscar have been battling it out, pitting their knowledge of the misty isle against each other, and today is the grand final. It's a four-all draw, and today will decide who gets the holiday!"

"And I believe we have them now…" Harry trailed off, and fiddled with both his computer and the small console in front of him, and two flashing lights came on above my head, one red and one green. "Hello?"

"Hi!" Sophie's now familiar voice came through the line.

"Hello," Oscar said, sounding rather bemused. Didn't really blame him myself.

"Are you two ready for the final?" Harry asked.

"I think so," Oscar said.

"Me, too," Sophie said.

"Right then," I said. "As you know, it's three questions each, best of three, and if there's a tiebreak we go to …"

"…sudden death." Harry dropped his voice, prolonging the words. It sounded spooky, really.

"But on a lighter note, here's the first question for Sophie," I said. Harry passed the clipboard over to me, and I read off her first question. "Which flower is the national emblem of England?"

"Erm … I think it's the rose," she said nervously.

"Drum roll please," I asked, and Harry obliged on the tabletop with a couple of pens. "Absolutely correct!"

I heard a small sigh of relief, and the clipboard got passed back to Harry.

"Okay, to break even," he said. "Oscar, can you tell me which _Star Trek _captain was played by an English actor?"

Silence. "We have to hurry you," Harry said.

More silence. "I have no idea," he confessed. "But I'll guess … Picard?"

"Captain Jean-Luc Picard is the right answer!" Harry said. "The score is now one all."

And so on. I won't bore you with the details, except to say that we made Oscar a very happy man. He won three-two in the end, and even agreed to send us a postcard from the Lake District. Every holiday we give away, Harry and I make sure we get postcards. They go on this noticeboard in Harry's small office. So far, we had cards sent from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Canada and France. Some of them even had messages written on them.

After Sophie and Oscar disappeared, Harry put on some music and we both relaxed again. The final had only lasted about fifteen minutes, but it was still exhausting. Not to mention the fact that we had to reach over each time we needed the clipboard so my arm definitely ached, at least. I can't be too sure about Harry, though.

That song finished, and I began a sequence that would play about six different ones in a row. Both Harry and I then sat back and looked up at the schedule on the wall. According to the times B'Elanna had scribbled down on it while she was in here, two of the more sidelined _Jupiter_ presenters should be turning up pretty much any minute soon. They would be staying here for about an hour or so for chats inbetween songs and then would disappear again back to their station. Which was in a building about two, two-and-a-half hours from here, and was _much_ better furnished, actually had a view of something green and natural (a peat factory, but that's not the point), and had more up-to-date technology than we did. Something about necessary budget cuts to save on energy at Voyager in the interim. Which is why Neelix took over as the cook in the cafeteria. Cheaper, more cost efficient. You get the idea.

We kind of got booted out of our last building, after the caretaker there tried to apply for legal compensation against us. Something about undue levels of stress. So yeah, he got us kicked out of our last building, and we ended up here, a good seventy miles from where we were last time, sharing the building with another rival station. We hate each other, the enmity between us is sky-high. That's all there is to say about that, really.

According to Janeway's second-in-command, so to speak, it would be a _long_ time before we could get out of here and go back home to our old building. But in the meantime, Voyager was doing pretty well.

So far.

***

Reviewer Response:-  
**Knight of Darkness**:-Yay! Another review! Indeed, the almighty Janeway is like a goddess where her employees are concerned … nothing gets by her and her Thermos!  
**Dolly**:- Thanks for the interest! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, as well   
**CaptainKJ**:- Good point (especially if she looked good in a catsuit as well!). But look at it this way. If he pissed off Janeway Jr., he would also have Janeway Sr. to contend with, and she's his boss. Definitely a double-edged sword there, and by no means one to be messed with!  
**Chaotic Boredom**:- Nicknames come and they sure do go. Methinks my excuse will be that 'Neelix' was one of those really random, spur-of-the-moment type things. And no worries about Chakotay. He's definitely making an appearance soon! Ooh, these big secrets I am revealing … okay, maybe not so big. But you get the idea!  
**KateORiley**:- It's coming, alright!  
a**sd**:- Thanks for the interest; hope you liked the latest chapter


	6. Reginald Barclay

It took another half-hour for the _Jupiter_ people to arrive. Two of them, as Harry had said, a man and a woman. Annika showed them in, and then disappeared to wherever it is that she goes. The man looked almost terrified for some reason. It was like he was perpetually nervous or something, whereas the woman just oozed self-confidence.

They came into the room, and Harry and I pulled up two spare chairs for them. The woman pursed her lips at the junk pile behind me, but said nothing. Instead she held out her hand to me. "Good afternoon. You must be Thomas Paris."

The accent was, well, exquisite, like nothing I'd ever heard before. But the name …

"Actually, it's Tom," I said back, shaking the hand. "Just Tom. And you are?"

"Deanna Troi," she replied, smiling slightly. "And this is Reginald Barclay, my colleague at _Jupiter_."

I turned to him. "Nice to meet you."

He nodded jerkily, but said nothing.

At that moment, Harry's head popped up from behind his computer. Oops. "And this is Harry." I indicated him, and he nodded at Troi and Barclay, while trying to focus on the screen in front of him. "Never interrupt a genius at work," I muttered, sitting back down. "So by all means, keep the boy from his computer."

And at that very moment, a very rude gesture surfaced from behind the computer. I chose to ignore it, I knew Harry. We were like this all the time, never took each other _too _seriously.

"Uh, take a set of headphones each," I said, offering them out, "and we'll get you straight in at the deep end."

And straight in at the deep end they went. During the course of the interview with them we found out, among other things, that Troi was the ultimate chocoholic and that Barclay worked under one Lewis Zimmerman, definitely one of the more … eccentric … technicians at _Jupiter_. And that's putting it mildly.

And apart from that, neither person was particularly exciting or overly interesting. Don't tell him I said this, but I was starting to miss the Doctor; that scared me.

A lot.

They stayed until the end of our shift, but neither really said that much inbetween on-air chats. Some people are just no fun.

And then they left, accompanied by Annika. For some reason she looked, well, _flustered_. Never seen her like that before, not a good look for her. And it wasn't like she was panting and out of breath and all, no. It was more like, there were a few hairs out of place and one of the buttons of the jacket she was wearing wasn't done up. Due to the fact she was always perfectly turned out and all, it was very obvious. Harry noticed it as well; we exchanged a look as she came in to get Troi and Barclay.

__

Annika the Robot got all dishevelled kept running through my head, and I could tell Harry was thinking along the same lines. We shared one of those confused _What the hell?!_ looks as the door closed behind her.

Harry's eyebrows immediately shot upwards. "What do you think that was?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I have no idea, but I would love to find out," I replied. "You up for a little extra-curricular trek, Sir Henry?"

Another fish-eyed look, and somehow the eyebrows managed to raise themselves even further. "Why not, Sir Thomas?" he replied in an attempt at an English accent that sounded like a geriatric Indian.

We left the studio. Only then did it hit us that we had no idea where Annika would be. Whoops. Not good. At that point, Harry suggested we try her office, a small room near Janeway's and I agreed. So up we went, taking pretty much the same route I had when summoned to said boss's office. The door to her office was virtually the same as Janeway's, except that the door was made of a cheaper wood. That figured.

"You or me?" I asked. Harry shrugged, but placed his hand on the doorknob nevertheless, and twisted it slightly. Then he jumped back in surprise as the door opened silently underneath him. He opened the door properly, and poked his head around the door. Naturally, I followed suit. Like I was going to do anything else.

The room inside was considerably darker than it was outside in the corridor, where the sunshine came bouncing in off the walls and dual carriageways that could be seen through the windows. Yup. Someone had definitely drawn the blinds.

With all the appearance of drunken James Bonds, Harry and I slipped inside, and closed the door behind us. Hell, it was stupid, but right there and then, I wanted to know what the hell was going on. Annika Hansen does not have three or four hairs out of place for no reason.

A couple of minutes later, my eyes adjusted to the dark, and I saw what I sincerely hope I will never see again in my _life_. A quick glance to Harry's outline and I could tell he looked similarly scared. At least, I think he was scared. I hope he was, because I wanted _out_ of there. I opened the door again, and Harry slipped out first, undetected. A split second later, I was back out in the harsh light of the corridor.

I was right. Harry was freakin' _terrified_. 

***

Reviewer Response:-  
**Knight of Darkness**:-It's hard to feel sorry for the Doctor when his head's jammed so far up his … well, we won't go there, even if he is one of my favourite characters!   
**CaptainKJ**:- Offer appreciated, but I already have something in mind as regards Janeway Jr. And I agree about the Picard thing. I mean, there is more than a slight difference between a French and English accent ...  
**asd**:- And another fan joins the legions! Or not. But it's very good to know you still like this. Personally I'd have given up after the caretaker character assassination … *grimace*  
**Chaotic Boredom**:- Well, they were introduced in Caretaker, and names of other episodes they got to wreck havoc in escape me … meh


	7. B'Elanna Torres

Mutely, Harry and I returned to our respective offices and collected our things. I believe it needless to say that we were both terrified by what we saw inside Annika's office, and I hope that readers won't be offended if I refuse to say what we witnessed in there.

Sorry, but it was almost _too_ scary.

I was about to leave to go find Harry when something on the desk caught my eye. Closer inspection found it to be a piece of notepaper, several messages scrawled on it in varying writing;

__

Telephone call; Doc sighted at high school, kids alerted thanks to us ;)  
Team-building exercise Sunday afternoon (see Annika)  
Nathaniel called to cancel. You up for a drink later?

The last message definitely stopped me in my tracks. The handwriting was slanted and curved, and sort of dipped at the end, like a drunken spider had been staggering across the page. I recognised it; it was B'Elanna's writing.

The message she had left gave me some very weird, very unsettling sensations around my stomach area. Okay, I thought B'Elanna Torres was gorgeous. Okay, she thought I was a grade 'A' idiot. That was okay, though; most people thought that about me.

"Hey, you got everything?" Harry asked, poking his head around the door. I turned around and he came all the way in.

"Just about, I think."

"Good," he answered. "Janeway's organised some post-work bonding session at a restaurant. You, me, B'Elanna, Annika, Janeway herself and someone else. Didn't catch his name. Taxi comes in ten minutes."

"That soon?" I started rifling through a stack of paper that had mysteriously and completely unexplainably built up on the desk. "Did Janeway tell you?"

Harry fell silent. Then, "Actually, no. Actually, Annika told me." He stopped and flushed. "God it was awful, Tom. I couldn't look her in the eye or anything."

"Did you …?"

He stopped there and gave me a very fish-eyed look. "Uh-huh. Did you really think I would tell her that we were in her office without permission or whatever? Yeah Tom, I'm suicidal here."

I smiled. "I didn't mean it like that. Look, I'm sure if we both say nothing, then this will all go away, and maybe - just maybe, the memories will begin to fade."

"And we'll never be able to look Annika face-on again," Harry added, expressing his own sentiments.

I shook my head. "Amen to that. We did wrong, didn't we Harry?"

He nodded, still looking worried. "I know. Maybe, maybe we should tell her?"

"What?! Are you kidding? Look, if she wanted people to know, then I'm sure people _would_ know instead of … in there, in secret, like that? Chances are we'll probably die by death glare if we do tell her. Not to mention getting chewed out for being in there in the first place."

Harry nodded again, then looked at his watch. "We should get going. Come on."

Downstairs, we met up with Janeway and the others. B'Elanna had somehow found time to get changed into a black shirt and trousers, Janeway was pretty much wearing the same suit I had seen her in earlier, and Annika was in the same grey suit as always. The fourth person was someone I almost recognised. I sort of got the feeling I was meant to know him from somewhere, and knowing me I probably _did_ know him from somewhere. He was wearing some bottle-green creation of a tunic and trousers, and then the flash of deadpanned inspiration hit me.

Janeway's second-in-command, so to speak, David Chakotay. Hadn't seen him around in a while due for reasons completely unknown, and he was pretty distinctive, in any case. He has some weird tattoo on one side of his forehead, sort of like rectangular feathers. I'm not quite sure how to explain it if you haven't seen it before. He has American Indian heritage … at least, I think he does.

I don't exactly pay attention at the 'getting to know you' sessions. Fiddly details have a habit of boring me.

"Tom, Harry," Janeway smiled. "How was today's going?"

"Er, not too bad, ma'am," Harry replied nervously, fingering the cuff of his shirt. Again, I wondered how Janeway knew about the pasta incident. I mean, it's not exactly the sort of thing you go around finding out about your employees, did said employee or did said employee not regurgitate half their lunch on themselves?

From outside, a car horn beeped. Chakotay poked his head outside, then brought it back in. "That's the cab," he said.

The journey to the restaurant took all of fifteen minutes, Janeway up in front with the driver, and the five of us squashed awkwardly in the back. Don't get me wrong, the car was plenty big enough for six passengers, it just didn't seem that way once we were inside. The restaurant itself wasn't all that much, small and quiet, not that many people in.

Janeway confirmed the reservation, and led the six of us to a rounded table in one corner. I ended up with Janeway herself on one side of me, and B'Elanna on the other. Harry was on her other side, and next to him was Annika; Chakotay took the last seat.

Food was ordered (pasta, fortunately, _not_ on the menu) and brought, and conversation quickly turned to romance or possible lack thereof.

Basic rundown; I was free, single and looking. B'Elanna muttered something about men letting her down and swore off the safe types from then on. Harry gushed on about Alexia until I was ready to hit him with the good Doctor's ego. Janeway held her coffee in one hand and said that she was a career girl and had no romance in her life, although she did have one daughter, currently in college, by a previous relationship. Neither Annika nor Chakotay claimed to be in a relationship, although Chakotay avoided meeting anybody's eyes and Annika definitely blushed a little. It may or may not have been real, but she was a little more flushed than normal.

I should mention at this point that rather a lot of alcohol was consumed by both B'Elanna and Harry during the course of the meal. We all drank (with the exception of the boss and her beloved brew), but they seemed to be, well, enjoying themselves a lot more. Well, the meal was on the company account, so why not?

Towards the end of the meal, I also noticed B'Elanna touching me a lot more than normal. Nothing dirty or kinky or whatever, more of she held on to my arm more and more often as she tried to tell Chakotay a joke involving twelve men and a woman hanging from a helicopter [1], or hold a conversation with Harry on the merits of Windows XP compared to 2000.

Janeway settled the bill, and we all went our separate ways. I ended up in a cab with Harry and B'Elanna, heading back to Harry's apartment first. We dropped him off okay, and then we headed to B'Elanna's place, about five minutes away from where Harry lived.

She was drunk. Even I could tell that. Not very, but enough to sway around a little on her seat, and when we did reach her place, I had to help her out and offer her an arm to stop her from falling where she stood. At her front door, she fumbled with the keys, managed to open the door, then turned to look at me.

"Paris," she said, her voice slightly slurred. "Fancy coming in for a drink?"

That stunned me. Then I remembered the note in my office. I paid the cab driver, and then followed B'Elanna in through the door. A calendar on top of the fridge in the kitchen said today was Friday. Which meant that neither of us had any work tomorrow. And she would be sober. We could talk tomorrow.

For once, it wasn't a case of _Roll on, Monday_…

***

The End

***

[1] Very funny joke. Should you like it, let me know in the review, leave me an email address, and I will email you the joke

Reviewer Response:-  
**tefla**:- Tom and Harry in the office … seems most folks want to know that one, and I am glad to know you liked  
**CaptainKJ**:- Indeed. It should be obvious … Patrick Stewart is NOT French!  
**Chaotic Boredom**:- You may well know what they saw. Heh. I'm leaving that one to readers' imaginations …  
**Knight of Darkness**:- Scared or scarred? Either works  
**asd**:- And I want to know next weeks lottery numbers, but we can't have everything! Tsk, tsk …


End file.
